Thanks to Malcolm Conlan BBC apologized over Jover Laurio biased interview against Duterte

Glad the BBC actually responded to and acknowledged our protest, letter and petition. We finally got the apology we deserve.

Maraming Salamat po dear friends:

Dear Mr Conlan

Reference CAS-4627508-JJ01Q3

Thanks for contacting Tony Hall. As I am sure you'll appreciate, the BBC Director-General receives more correspondence than he can deal with personally, so once correspondence has been read by his office it is forwarded to us here in the BBC Audience Services department so we can respond on behalf of the BBC's management.

I understand you feel an item on "BBC News Channel" on 13 October relating to blogger Jover Laurio was biased against Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

Naturally we regret when any member of our audience is unhappy with any part of what we do. Impartiality is a core value of the BBC, and one reason why we believe our news coverage is trusted and respected around the world. We apply this principle to our reporting of all issues. BBC News never takes a position on anything that we cover, but we always aim to reflect a broad range of voices on any given subject. The BBC is of course independent of any political or commercial interests, and our news agenda would never be influenced by any outside organisation.

There may be times when there is a consensus view on an issue, which will become apparent in our coverage; this doesn’t mean that we are agreeing with it, but simply that we’re reflecting the reality of what is happening. By the same token, we wouldn’t censor a minority viewpoint, even if some of our audience might find it unpalatable. We are careful to check and report the facts surrounding any debate, examine relevant arguments, and offer detailed analysis. We believe that by doing this our audience can then make up their own minds.

Due impartiality isn’t necessarily always achieved in one single report or programme, so we would ask that you take account of how we cover a topic over time.

We’re sorry if you feel that any aspect of our news coverage displays bias, but hope the above explains the approach we take to reporting to try and ensure that we always maintain our impartiality. If you’re interested, you can read more about the BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguide…/guidelines/impartiality

Please be assured we have passed your concerns to the BBC News teams as well as BBC Management via our audience feedback report.

Thank you, once again, for contacting the BBC.

Kind regards

John Hamill
BBC Complaints Team